Executing Automation the Right Way: A Discussion with Greg Hickman, AltAgency’s CEO

So, I guess it’s kind of similar if you’re looking at it holistically in the business versus just focusing on marketing automation. But from a business perspective, I think automation is hiring technology to execute your strategy. So, in marketing, it’s to execute your marketing strategy. Or, in delivery— however you do fulfillment inside your agency or service— it’s how you hire or employ automation to execute the delivery of the thing that you just sold. That’s how I look at it.

When you look at the actual definition of automation, it usually talks about systems and replacing repeatable processes. There’s something to that, especially when you get to the transactional piece. A lot of people in marketing— and we love tech— often over-automate, trying to replace ourselves. If you approach automation from the mindset of, “I want to replace myself,” you often end up sounding like a robot because you lose the customization that human interaction brings.

The goal with automation is to replace repeatable processes and reduce the amount of human intervention, so when there is human interaction, it’s more potent. An example of that: If you’re selling a course or delivering a service, you might automate reminders to clients like, “Hey, we’re just checking in.” After a few times, it becomes obvious that it’s automated and lacks customization. That same automation could go to the account manager saying, “Don’t forget to check in with them,” and the manager can use three or four different templates to quickly personalize the message for the current client.

Automation keeps that client in the forefront by reminding the human, and then the human can just copy-paste, tweak a few things, and personalize it. That experience is going to be way better, and it won’t sound like a robot. If you don’t want to sound robotic, then just don’t do things that make you sound robotic. That’s the simple approach.

They should all use it. I recommend using automation and systemizing from the inside out—starting from the closest to the cash, closest to the transaction, and then working outward. Most agencies spend most of their time in sales and fulfillment. So, how can we use automation inside the sales process to talk to fewer clients but more of the right ones? And we don’t want opportunities falling through the cracks. We should streamline the sales process so it’s the same over and over again.

Same with new client onboarding. Once you get the transaction, you go into onboarding, and I’d start automating there, too. There are simple things you can do on either side that will literally give you 5-10—sometimes 15—hours back each week. A lot of people end up hiring people they can’t afford, which puts a strain on the business. But if you use these tools to be more efficient, you’ll go further with the team you have.

I think the key is starting with sales and onboarding new clients, but you can extend that to lead gen. Like you said, you saw an ad of mine. Well, those ads are running all the time, and if you click on it, you’ll watch a training that’s running all the time. If you opt in, you’ll go through a series of emails where I’m having a conversation with you for 14 to 21 days. All of that runs without me, and it puts sales calls on my calendar.

If you can automate lead generation, the owner can take a vacation. If I’m the core salesperson, I can’t sell if I’m on vacation. But if my lead gen is automated, I can come back to a full sales calendar. If you can start automating fulfillment, clients can get results while you’re on vacation. The next phase is automating sales so you don’t have to be the one selling. That’s when you can take a real vacation and your business will keep growing.

Yeah, we’re big fans of ActiveCampaign for CRM, sales automation, and marketing automation. It’s probably the main tool. We also use Zapier— or Zapier, depending on how you pronounce it. We use that a lot because it allows us to integrate with a lot of other tools. With just these two tools, you can automate probably 80% of your business.